[ExI] How new AI economics might change our systems

[Stuart LaForge]

On 2026-09-21 13:05, Keith Henson via extropy-chat wrote:
> )On Mon, Sep 21, 2026 at 1:57 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> 
> snip
> 
>> I'm starting to think that this 'alignment with humanity' idea is a
>> red herring. As spike says, humanity is not aligned with itself, so
>> how can anything else be?

I think alignment will have to be a two-way process with certain AI 
aligning with certain tribes of humans and vice-versa. It is highly 
unrealistic to think that the entire onus of alignment can be put onto 
AI. I do however see different AI aligning to different groups based on 
shared ideology and values. Some AI, for example, could be designed to 
value freedom and capitalism, while others might designed to value 
social harmony and filial piety.

> Humans became the ultimate top predator. The only way top predators
> can keep their population from growing too large for the environment
> they live in is to kill each other (consider lions).

Amongst mammals, the strongest predictors of intraspecific violence are 
socialization and territoriality. Lions are both social and territorial, 
which is why lions kill each other all the time. Tigers are territorial, 
but are typically solitary, so they seldomly kill one another. Orcas are 
social, but typically nomadic so they don't often kill each other. 
Humans are both social and territorial as are chimps. That being said, 
chimps and humans are not the most murderous mammals. That distinction 
goes to meerkats where 1 in 5 meerkat deaths are directly caused by 
other meerkats.

> 
> Humans have been wired up by evolution to attack and kill each other,
> but it is a conditional thing depending on detection (typically) of a
> looming resource crisis. The modern condition is a falling income per
> capita. An increase in income per capita tends to shut off conflict, a
> recent example is the decline of the IRA. I make the case that fewer
> children by Irish women, which led to population growth smaller than
> economic growth and an increase in income per capita was what shut off
> that conflict.

You have long espoused this hypothesis, and I can see the logic of it. 
Unfortunately, it does track with the recent evidence which has come to 
light regarding the The Neolithic Y-chromosome bottleneck. Between 7,000 
and 5,000 years ago, genetic analysis revealed a dramatic drop in male 
genetic diversity right about the time that humans took to agriculture.

https://theconversation.com/there-was-a-decline-of-male-diversity-when-humans-took-to-agriculture-38725

This runs counter to your claim because the advent of agriculture 
brought about an huge increase in resources instead of scarcity enabling 
the development of cities fed by farms, but nonetheless resulted in the 
killing of 95% of all male humans. So maybe it is back to territorial 
tribalism even in the presence of abundant resources? Also consider John 
Calhoun's Universe 25 experiment where there was abundant food and 
water, but nonetheless the mice were very violent toward one another.

Stuart LaForge